Living in the cloud —

Acer adds a 16GB variant of its C7 Chromebook with a solid-state drive

For those who really want to put their data up in the cloud.

If you've been in the market for a cheap, entry-level Chromebook, Acer's C7 Chromebook is the most affordable pick. And according to Engadget, Acer is introducing a 16GB solid-state drive option to the lineup.

The C7 will continue to cost $199, and the new storage hardware presumably won't affect the 100GB of Google Drive storage users also receive. Best Buy says that the laptop is on its way, though there is no official launch date. The device will still feature a dual-core 1.1GHz Intel Celeron 847 processor, 2GB of RAM, and plenty of ports, including VGA, HDMI, a built-in card reader, and three USB 2.0 ports. You can still purchase the 320GB standard hard disk variant of the laptop from Best Buy and other participating retailers for now, though it's unclear if this 16GB version is replacing the original.

We reviewed Acer's C7 Chromebook late last year, and while we appreciated its relatively low price point, we felt it was too thick and heavy compared to other Chromebooks on the market—not to mention that it didn't offer the best battery life and it felt cheap to the touch to boot. Then again, it is $199, which is about $50 cheaper than the Samsung Chromebook. If you're considering buying one, it's really a matter of how much you value those Benjamins.

Florence Ion
Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.

22 Reader Comments

If they give it the same keyboard layout as the Samsung then I might consider picking one up to play with, but as it is I would have a very hard time recommending anything other than the Pixel (high end) or Samsung (low end) to people.

Chrombooks can be very cheap, but they still need to feel like a Chrombook and not a Windows laptop running Chrome OS.

Does anyone know if this has a slot for a 2.5" HDD? Or did they engineer this out? Being able to throw in any old spare HDD as a 2nd storage would be a cheap upgrade. And honestly, I'm not willing to store my 40GB of music in the cloud.

If they give it the same keyboard layout as the Samsung then I might consider picking one up to play with, but as it is I would have a very hard time recommending anything other than the Pixel (high end) or Samsung (low end) to people.

Chrombooks can be very cheap, but they still need to feel like a Chrombook and not a Windows laptop running Chrome OS.

I don't know, I personally think the BIGGEST thing missing from the Chromebook world is a simple install that turns an unused old laptop into a Chromebook. That would explode the market for ChromeOS.

With Asus getting out of the "netBook" game, this is the only game in town. Acer has a very good chance of picking up a lot of business from people who are looking for a cheap laptop, and don't want to buy an OEM copy of Windows with it. It would be nice if they included some normal BIOS compatibility, making it easier to install 3rd-party OSes.

Been demoing the Lenovo x131e chrome books for my school - and love these things. Great battery life, crazy fast boot time, and I am not just talking about the machine getting to the login screen, but you are talking 10-12 seconds from power on to actually using the machine.

I think we will see a lot of movement in chromeos side of things this year. Especially with the current push for packaged apps.

I don't know, I personally think the BIGGEST thing missing from the Chromebook world is a simple install that turns an unused old laptop into a Chromebook. That would explode the market for ChromeOS.

That would contradict completely the design of ChromeOS.

The zero maintenance, auto update and security of ChromeOS are accomplished by pushing very dedicated firmware tailor made for each specific hardware models. Each firmware has the exact working (and tested) drivers and settings for that hardware.Also Chromebooks have special security features in them, at the hardware level, to protect the user data partition. For instance if you factory reset or switch to dev mod, the user partition is wiped.

You can't achieved that level of security and integration on an unused old laptop. You could solve the drivers issue by pushing a generic image and using a plug&play system like Windows or Linux do now. But it's only a small part of the whole.

How do Chromebooks handle periods without net connection? I was under the impression that doing things like editing documents (via Google Drive?) was only possible if one is connected to the net. I could see a Chromebook being appealing for trips, but I usually don't have (reliable) wifi access then.

I don't know, I personally think the BIGGEST thing missing from the Chromebook world is a simple install that turns an unused old laptop into a Chromebook. That would explode the market for ChromeOS.

That would contradict completely the design of ChromeOS.

The zero maintenance, auto update and security of ChromeOS are accomplished by pushing very dedicated firmware tailor made for each specific hardware models. Each firmware has the exact working (and tested) drivers and settings for that hardware.Also Chromebooks have special security features in them, at the hardware level, to protect the user data partition. For instance if you factory reset or switch to dev mod, the user partition is wiped.

You can't achieved that level of security and integration on an unused old laptop. You could solve the drivers issue by pushing a generic image and using a plug&play system like Windows or Linux do now. But it's only a small part of the whole.

ChromeOS is more, lot of more than just a small Linux + Chrome.

And clearly, it is a lot less too. It's fine if you get some extra hardware update security if you get the software integrated with specific software, but that is zero justification for not having a version that works on existing hardware. Linux works just fine and has acceptable security and reliability with its current non-standardized hardware model- that is good enough for me and a lot of other people. As for wiping the user partition: er, how hard is it to just securely encrypt the partition? Linux can do that just fine.

I haven't heard a reasonable justification yet. I understand the benefits of the unified hardware+software model, but the advantages that gives you are minor relative to the enormous potential user base that is currently untapped. Here's a data point of one: I have a bunch of old notebooks laying around, and there is no way I am going to buy a new one just to run ChromeOS, just because someone somewhere wants to dictate the way I use ChromeOS. I'll use it my way, or I'll hit the highway.

And clearly, it is a lot less too. It's fine if you get some extra hardware update security if you get the software integrated with specific software, but that is zero justification for not having a version that works on existing hardware. Linux works just fine and has acceptable security and reliability with its current non-standardized hardware model- that is good enough for me and a lot of other people. As for wiping the user partition: er, how hard is it to just securely encrypt the partition? Linux can do that just fine.

I haven't heard a reasonable justification yet. I understand the benefits of the unified hardware+software model, but the advantages that gives you are minor relative to the enormous potential user base that is currently untapped. Here's a data point of one: I have a bunch of old notebooks laying around, and there is no way I am going to buy a new one just to run ChromeOS, just because someone somewhere wants to dictate the way I use ChromeOS. I'll use it my way, or I'll hit the highway.

The point of zero maintenance is zero ...The point of auto-provisioning and auto-installation is auto...

Needing someone to wipe and install something on an old computer isn't zero: there is an initial cost, fine for you if you're tech savvy, not fine for everyone else. Even then, next you can't guarantee zero maintenance because you can't guarantee no upgrade glitch to occur. I can give a Chromebook to anyone and he'll never come back to me to fix something. I can't guarantee that with old notebooks. So it's not the ChromeOS experience.

For users, ChromeOS must mean 'I can trust that thing' because they're going to input their Google Account password... not tarnishing the ChromeOS name is important too.

So just put a minimal Linux and Chrome on your old notebooks or do an unofficial /unsupported installation of ChromeOS (or ChromiumOS) but they won't autoupdate (unless you build your own update server). At least you'll have the auto-provisioning feature (anyone with a Google account can use them).

If they give it the same keyboard layout as the Samsung then I might consider picking one up to play with, but as it is I would have a very hard time recommending anything other than the Pixel (high end) or Samsung (low end) to people.

Chrombooks can be very cheap, but they still need to feel like a Chrombook and not a Windows laptop running Chrome OS.

I don't know, I personally think the BIGGEST thing missing from the Chromebook world is a simple install that turns an unused old laptop into a Chromebook. That would explode the market for ChromeOS.

You would never get the full Cromebook experience unless you overwrote the BIOS. Most older BIOS take longer to POST than a real Chromebook takes to fully boot.

I'm still wishing they would release an Chromebook Pixel with option to dual boot to Windows 8. Then a mid-range Chromebook in the $400 range with all the basic features of a Pixel except lower specs i.e. smaller screen. slower processor, smaller HDD, etc., and maybe no touch screen. However it still needs great battery life, good quality screen, and a cell radio built in.

I'm still wishing they would release an Chromebook Pixel with option to dual boot to Windows 8. Then a mid-range Chromebook in the $400 range with all the basic features of a Pixel except lower specs i.e. smaller screen. slower processor, smaller HDD, etc., and maybe no touch screen. However it still needs great battery life, good quality screen, and a cell radio built in.

The Chrome book Pixel jr.

I would consider this. Premium, but not first-born premium. Hopefully whatever response Google is seeing to the Pixel makes them think the next tier down is a good idea.

I do a lot of writing at times, & this might make a good writer's machine. Light and easily portable. 16GB is ample for text files. Rapid power-on is wonderful for writers. Weak graphics prevents getting distracted by games etc Cloud storage means easy remote backup for inept writers, and easy sync'd access to documents via phone or other machines / easy replacement if broken/ lost. (yeah I use Dropbox for all this already.) Most modern screens are good enough for writing.

Do NOT use Word for writing. It is not a writing app, it is a processing app for processing & marking up text. Something like WriteRoom will present you with a plain black fullscreen, keep your cursor / focal point / text entry point centred mid-screen, and take away every text markup option (even Bold / italic are missing) so you've nothing to do except focus on the words and write. More or less any screen is good enough for WriteRoom.

The only fly in the machine would be the keyboard. No idea if this has a decent keyboard. At $200, probably not. But it looks like a modern chiclet keyboard, similar to the Macbook range, which are wonderful. So maybe I can give up looking at the MBA in the window and get this instead.

I hope they are changing the screen. I have fixed three acer chromebook c7's screens, each were never dropped, punched or had anything sitting on top. They just died randomly. I like chromebooks but the c7s are built very cheap.